The Square and the Tower: Niall Ferguson with Gillian Tett

The renowned historian asks: From the Freemasons to Facebook, how have networks been true sources of power and drivers of change throughout history?

Most history is hierarchical: it’s about emperors, presidents, prime ministers, and field marshals. It’s about states, armies, and corporations. But what if that’s simply because hierarchical institutions create the archives that historians rely on? What if we are missing the informal, less well documented social networks that have had as much of a hand in shaping history as anything else? The 21st century has been hailed as the Age of Networks, but Niall Ferguson argues that networks have always been with us, from the structure of the brain to the food chain, from the family tree to freemasonry.

Ferguson will speak with Gillian Tett, U.S. Managing Editor of The Financial Times. From the cults of ancient Rome to the dynasties of the Renaissance, from the founding fathers to Facebook, they will examine how a better understanding of networks can transform our understanding of both the past and the present.